Djokovic had played somewhat shaky tennis in his first two rounds, beating Davydenko when Davydenko had 2 breaks, then a third before giving up the first set then disappearing in the second.  Against Cilic, Djokovic again struggled a bit with trying to take control of the match, but did good enough to win.

But it was his first match against a top ten player in Gael Monfils where Djokovic really put on the magic.  Monfils normally plays rather defensively standing way behind the baseline.  Monfils tried to hit a bit harder, but by standing so far back, Djokovic started to dictate the points moving Monfils all over before striking down the line or inside out.

Indeed, the second set was headed to 6-0 when Monfils hammed it up and Djokovic looked like he gave Monfils a game out of pity.  In that game, Monfils did a flying swinging volley that left the audience gasping.  Monfils then hit a good pass as Djokovic came in off a subpar approach.

Djokovic had to work pretty hard to serve out the match with Monfils getting two chances to break, but eventually won match point with a down-the-line forehand.

Earlier in the day, Mardy Fish won a peculiar match against Stan Wawrinka.  Fish easily took the first set.  Wawrinka then went up 4-1 double break up.  Fish got both breaks back, but then surrendered another break, then broke again and got into tiebreak.  Fish had his chances, but ultimately Wawrinka pushed it to a third set.  From then on, it was all Fish, with a 6-0 set.

Tsonga won his match over Almagro 6-4, 6-4.  He plays Djokovic next.  This should be a closer match because Tsonga serves a bit bigger and certainly hits bigger than Monfils.

Mardy Fish will take on Janko Tipsarevic who beat Tomas Berdych.  Tipsarevic has never lost to Berdych, and showed it again.  This could be a great opportunity for Fish to reach the finals of a Masters 1000 event as he did last year at Cincinnati.